


Euphony

by JackofSomeTrades



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Cassian's voice should get its own tag, Chirrut and Baze are referenced but also don't actually get involved soz, Explicit Consent, F/M, However K2 has gone AWOL in this fic sorry folks, Hurt/Comfort, Implied resolution to said UST, Medical highs, Unresolved Sexual Tension, rating mainly for language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-10
Updated: 2017-09-10
Packaged: 2018-12-26 06:25:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12053205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JackofSomeTrades/pseuds/JackofSomeTrades
Summary: Euphony: the quality of being pleasing to the earShe laughs. “Kriffing hell, Cassian. Half of them probably just have hard-ons for your voice. Don’t overthink it.”“My voice? Why would you think that?”Shavit.





	Euphony

**Author's Note:**

> So I haven't written something this fast ever, but I had a quiet weekend and it just happened. Mainly because I find Diego Luna’s voice exceptionally attractive. I’m sure it’s not just me…
> 
> Anyway, this is pretty self-explanatory, and compared to my last fic, a lot less angsty and a lot more… charged.
> 
> It’s also full of tropes, but hey, they’re classics for a reason I guess.
> 
> I continue to not be an expert in the Star Wars universe, I'm really sorry for any obvious errors.
> 
> Finally, Jyn seems to spend a lot of her time in this fic either out of it or high. Not quite sure how that happened, possibly because that’s the only time she’ll be honest with herself about what she’s feeling.

 

* * *

 

_euphony_

_/ˈjuːf(ə)ni/_

_noun_

_the quality of being pleasing to the ear_

* * *

 

**The Briefing**

“And finally, pay special attention to the Imperial chatter along the Perlemian Trade Route over the next few weeks. We’re hearing several reports of heavily armed freighters moving along the upper reaches of the corridor and also rumours of greater ‘trooper presence in the Tion cluster.”

Cassian pauses and takes a sip of water. He’s favouring his right side, there’s an awkward shrug to get the bottle back on the table. She’d bet any money that he’s been missing his rehab sessions while she’s been off-world.

“The Empire has been licking its wounds for several weeks now, but they know where we are, and we are not yet ready to transfer all our operations to Echo Base.”

He looks around the group. “We are counting on all of your sharp ears and quick brains. Stay alert, keep us all alive. Next briefing will be tomorrow at 1500 standard. Dismissed.” 

There’s a moment of awed silence, during which Jyn mentally lays odds on his chances of getting a round of applause. A young Sarkhai near the front raises her hands as if tempted, but Cassian doesn’t give her the opportunity, swiftly stepping off the low platform of the briefing room and disappearing into the command centre itself. It’s the cue for the whole group to disperse, a low hum of conversation building as the codebreakers, programmers and interpreters follow him in smaller knots. 

She trails behind them, keeping out of Draven’s eyeline. She’s not meant to be here anyway, she’s _meant_ to be back in the hangar helping Bodhi with post-flight system checks and uploading her mission logs into the secure mainframe. But she’s been off-world for a week longer than the mission was meant to last and when she left Cassian was barely capable of standing, so sue her if she’s more interested in finding out how he is than helping Bodhi and the hangar crew figure out what’s causing the weird clanking noise in the aft engine.

Inside mission command, she weaves her way past the slight chaos of shift-change. Cassian’s down the front, deep in discussion with an Imzig codebreaker, but he breaks off as he sees her. 

His face is as hard to read as ever. There’s no welcoming smile or look of surprise. If anything, he looks mildly exasperated, but he quietly dismisses the Imzig without hesitation as she approaches. Her hand tightens around the rough-wrapped bottle she’s carrying.

“You’re late.”

“Technically, I’m early. I only landed half an hour ago, this is me being _very_ prompt to report in.”

“Well then _technically_ , you should be helping with post-flight checks or formally reporting to your handler. Who isn’t me.”

She waves her hand away. “You’re my partner, right? Same difference.”

He sighs. “It’s really not, Jyn. You know, you’d think Saw would’ve instilled more discipline into his troops.”

She shrugs, and falls into step beside him as they make their way out of the rapidly quietening room.

“You haven't been going to your rehab sessions, have you?”

That, weirdly enough, earns her a smile. “Your tact, Jyn, is one of your greatest strengths.”

“Well, you haven’t. I know because you’re limping and you’re favouring your right side.”

“I’ve come a long way in the last two weeks,” he says, a touch defensively. “And I’ve been busy.”

She steps in front of him, blocking his path. “You want back in the field, Andor, you do your bloody rehab. You’re on recoop – what the hell is so pressing that you can’t make your rehab sessions?”

He raises his hands in surrender. “Fine, fine. I’ll go. But I _have_ been busy. There’s been a lot of noise coming in.”

“I heard. ‘Troopers in the Tion Cluster. We also flew past a Destroyer lurking around Tanaab, looked to be picking up supplies.”

“Shit,” Cassian mutters. And then, because he doesn’t miss much, “You were listening to the briefing?”

“I heard it was the place to be. And I wanted to see what sort of shape you were in.”

_I wanted to see you and hear your voice, because I’ve been thinking of little else for –_

“What’re you doing running shift briefings?”

“I filled in for Tarak last week when he went down with a bug. Draven asked me to keep going as long as I’m on recoop.”

“He did? Why?”

Cassian’s mouth twists a little, the closest he gets to showing frustration.

“Apparently rate of translated data packets improves 5% per hour when I do it.”

“Even though you hate it?”

“It’s that obvious?”

She huffs a short laugh. “Not to everyone.”

His eyebrows raise slightly, and she kicks herself, but he lets her slip pass without comment.

“I hate being the centre of attention. It’s the opposite of everything I’ve learned for as long as I can remember. It makes my skin itch.”

She can sympathise with that. “They did seem very… attentive.”

He scrubs his hand across his face. “I shouldn’t complain. It’s great they’re so keen, but – it was easier to be just some anonymous officer, or a face they vaguely connect to a call sign. Not some – some _hero_.”

And yeah, she gets that too. It’s why she signed up for the recon mission in the first place, the need to escape the base, get some anonymity. It’s not easy for either of them, coping with the stares, the whispers. They’re both used to operating on the edges, slipping through the cracks. The base sometimes feels like there’s a permanent spotlight following her around. She hates that Cassian’s being forced to cope with the same thing.

“Eh, there are enough heroes on base, with Skywalker and the Princess and that idiot smuggler around,” she tries to reassure him. “They’re probably not even thinking about Scarif.”

He rolls his shoulders uncomfortably.

“What else would it be?”

She laughs. “Kriffing hell, Cassian. Half of them probably just have hard-ons for your voice. Don’t overthink it.”

He looks surprised. “My voice? Why would you think that?”

_Shavit._

“Must’ve heard it somewhere. You know, hangar gossip.”

His face is unconvinced. “It seems unlikely. Mid-Rim accents aren’t considered particularly desirable, even in the Alliance. I doubt these kids are turning up to hear some Festian-inflected Basic.”

_Then they’re kriffing idiots. I’d listen to you reading diagnostic code. Your voice is like honey down my spi–_

She pulls herself together.

“Well, there’s no accounting for taste. And speaking of…” She holds her present out to him. “Just something I picked up.”

He looks mildly suspicious as he disinters the bottle from the crumpled brown wrapping.

“Ergesh rum? Where the hell did you pick this up?”

“Did a favour for someone on Tanaab. It’s no big deal – but you said you’d never tried it so…”

_Force, is this what two weeks away does? She’s babbling like a fool._

“Anyway, we’ve got one more back on the ship. We were going to crack it open with the rest of the crew after mess. You want to join? Torrh, Dade and I are going to try to find out how much rum it takes for Bodhi to lose something at sabacc.”

His face still doesn’t give anything away, but he’s quiet for a long moment, turning her casual offer into some damn weighty decision. She fights the urge to tap her foot.

“Sounds good,” he says eventually, and she has to bite the inside of her cheek so she doesn’t smile.

“Good. Go to a rehab session first,” she says. “I’ll send you a holocomm when we head down. Parked in Hangar 2.”

He nods, still completely unreadable. “It’s a –,” he stops, reconsiders. “It’ll be nice to see Bodhi and everyone. Thanks for inviting me.”

“No problem. Only bring credits you don’t mind losing.”

He smiles before he turns away, and her damn heart skips a beat. _Friends and partners, just friends and partners. Just… bugger._

 

* * *

 

**The Bed-Time Story**

 

“I thought I’d find you here.”

His voice disrupts her rhythm, and she takes a hit from the sparring-droid which knocks her back a few steps before she recovers, turning the stumble into a _dollyo chagi_ kick. The droid teeters for a moment before it goes down, bleeping the code for surrender.

She turns to look down the long, moonlit room. Cassian melts out from one of the patches of deep shadow.

“Very impressive,” he says, in that placid tone he knows needles her.

“You don’t _sound_ impressed.”

“I’d be more impressed if you were doing this during normal sparring hours, not at 0130.”

She pushes past him, wiping the sweat out of her eyes with her taped hands as she heads towards her kit.

“What business is it of yours,” she says, “what time I decide to work out?”

Cassian just raises his eyebrows mildly.

“When I’m getting holocomms from all your bunkmates telling me that you never sleep there.”

“It’s not their business either.”

“And if you were just sleeping somewhere else, then that’d be fine. But you’re not. You’re exhausted.”

She finishes unwrapping the tape and turns back to him, sticking out a hand. “Hello pot, I’m kettle.”

“Ha-ha, very funny.”

“I’m _fine_ , ok? Stop fussing. The reason I don’t sleep there is because half of them snore and one of them gets night terrors.”

_Me – I’m the one with night terrors. And I hate the looks on their faces when they wake me and my throat is raw._

She shakes the thought away. “It’s just easier to bunk down elsewhere.”

“If that's what you were doing, I wouldn't be bothering you. I’m sure you can find an empty bunk somewhere around, or – or make a friend to share it with.”

“Hah. Yeah – because I’m so great at making friends.” _And the only sent here I want to bunk down with is y– ... Don’t go there, Erso._

“Fair point.”

“Ok. So – good talk. I think we’ve established that I am a grown-ass sentient, capable of finding somewhere to sleep. It’s not like I spent years living on my own, looking after myself… oh wait, I did."

“You mean when you ended up in Imp prison?”

She practically snarls.

“What the fuck do you want, Andor? Do you want me to admit I’m tired? Ok fine, _fine_. I’m tired. I can’t sleep in my damn quarters, Bodhi’s taken our bird on a bloody supply run without me, and I can’t –”

 _I can’t sleep anywhere else. Not in a different ship. Not in a different bunk. Not in a storage closet, not in the gym. I either lie awake all night or I drop off and it feels like I’m drowning in my sleep. The only time I can sleep is when I’m with Bodhi on that damn bird or in some shithole on a mission and it’s sleep or die. So yes, Cassian, I’m here in the middle of the night trying to punch my way to unconsciousness. What the_ fuck _are you going to do about it?_

He just stands there and waits, as if he can read all of that off her damn face.

“Ok. I came up here because I’m helping out on night shift for the next few reports, so my room’ll be free. If you want.”

She bristles, about to say no, but she really is _so_ fucking tired.

“Fine. It probably won’t work, but fine. You’re in B5, right?”

“That’s right – B5, PR14.”

“Great, code my prints into your scanlock and I’ll be down once I’ve been in the sonic. You don’t want my sweat all in your sheets.”

A quick flicker runs across his face. She doesn’t even bother to try and parse it. If she’s too tired to argue, she’s definitely too damn tired to try and figure out Cassian’s unreadable microexpressions.

“Don’t worry, I’ll wait.”

“Oh, for the sake of the Force – Cassian, I can slice my way around your door code if I need to. Base security is appalling. Stop being so coy about your damn room.”

“That’s not what I’m worried about, Jyn. I’m worried that you’ll decide halfway through the sonic that you don’t want to be any bother and slink off to some damn maintenance closet to sleep instead of in a normal bed.”

She decides not to dignify that with a response.

He’s there when she comes out fifteen minutes later, calmly inspecting various training weapons. He’s half in and out of shadow, one cheekbone sharp in the pale glow, his eyes dark as the moonlight glints off a set of _beskad_ blades.

She likes it up here. It’s a rarity for a room on base to have windows, but the training gym is high enough in the temple to get a good patch of sky. She’s usually up here if it’s a clear night. No clouds means there’s usually enough second-hand light from at least one moon to work out without draining unnecessary power.

She’s never seen Cassian up here before, though. He lifts one of the _beskads_ , shifting his grip a few times, finding the centre of percussion.

“Are you any good with them?”

He shrugs. “Not as good as you. I’m an alright shot –,” he pauses as she raises an eyebrow at the understatement, “but I’m not much of a brawler.”

“Like me, you mean?”

“I’m a spy. Fights attract attention. I – prefer to keep my distance.”

It’s strange, he almost looks sad about it.

“It’s a good strategy, I suppose. Keeps you from getting too many scars.”

She nods down at her arms, where the moonlight renders the slightly silvered reminders of her past stark against her pale skin.

“I’m not sure about that,” he muses. “Perhaps mine are just harder to see.”

There are several ways she could read that statement and she’s not touching any of them with an Esoomian quarterstaff.

“Do you want – I could – if you wanted to practice at all…”

She’s slightly amazed to hear the words coming out of her mouth. Chirrut had asked if she’d like to help him and Baze train new recruits between missions. _I’m not a teacher_ , she’d said. _I’d probably just hurt them._

Cassian just slides the _beskad_ back into its sheath. “I’d prefer to keep all my extremities intact, thanks.”

_Smart boy._

“But maybe – my hand-to-hand could use a little work, once I’ve been signed off fit. I’d risk a broken nose to learn from the best.”

Her mind helpfully supplies visions of her grappling with Cassian… _pinning him down, his skin slick with sweat, shirtless, panting..._

She swallows. “Yeah, ok. When you’re recovered. I wouldn’t go easy on you.”

He smiles. “I wouldn’t expect you to.”

_Karking shitballs. Is – is this Cassian flirting? Is he flirting with me? I’m going to go sleep in his room and he’s smiling at me and…_

His voice cuts in to her spiralling thoughts. “I asked Chirrut too, so if I have enough lessons with him first, I might have a chance at actually beating you.”

_Oh._

She shrugs, trying to keep the sudden drop in her guts away from her face. “Probably a good plan, Andor.”

She’s suddenly exhausted – by the conversation, by her own thoughts, by the fact she’s only slept a few hours in the past week. Her yawn is huge and uncontrollable.

He doesn’t acknowledge it, for which she’s grateful, just moves past her quietly, leading the way down to his quarters.

His room is exactly what she expected, which is to say that it’s tiny, neat as a pin and with no discernible personal touches whatsoever. He _does_ have a small ‘fresher, which she tries not to be jealous about and fails at completely. The bed is no more comfortable than hers, though, and the spindly chair in the corner looks as if it’s lived a thousand lives before it ended up here.

Cassian points out the charging points and the ultrasound dental cleaner. He clarifies that, like most of the rest of the base, the thermo doesn’t work and lays out a spare, clean towel for her. Then he retreats to the door.

“Are you going to be ok in here?”

She looks around. It’s the first time that she’ll have ever had a room to herself – well, a place that isn’t an interrogation room or a solitary confinement cell. _It’s just a place to sleep, Erso, don’t get weird._

“Yeah, I think so. What time do you need me to be out of here?”

He looks a little confused, so she elaborates.

“Your shift – what time does it end? You’re gonna want your bed back at some point tomorrow morning, right?”

He pauses for a second and her brain finally catches up to her mouth. She checks her chrono. It’s now 0230. Even she’s not sleep-deprived enough to entirely miss the fact that night shift started over three hours ago.

“You’re not on night shift tonight, are you?”

He sighs.

“You lied to me?”

“No!” It was one of her conditions, after Eadu. She’d work with him, but no lies. “No, Jyn. I _do_ have night shift duty, it just – starts tomorrow night.”

“So what the hell were you planning to do tonight?”

He shrugs. “Adjusting my body chrono in advance. Thought I'd catch up on a bit of reading, which I can do anywhere.”

He’s doing her a favour and she hates it. But his room is quiet, and the lights are low, and her eyes are scratchy with tiredness. Her shoulders slump in acquiescence.

His voice is soft, careful. “Ok then. I’ll come and wake you when it’s shift change, so you know what time I’ll be back the rest of the week.”

She nods, stiffly.

He’s almost out the door when she says it. The words bubble out from some lost part of her soul, _don’t leave me in the dark, don’t leave me alone, just for tonight… don’t leave._

“You could – do your reading here, if you like.”

He pauses, facing away from her. She’s grateful, it means she doesn’t have to try to manage her face, the words already too vulnerable on their own. _Don’t ask, Cassian, don’t ask why I said it…_

“Are you sure I wouldn’t disturb you?”

She almost laughs in relief. “If you can sit and read without humming, whistling or tapping your foot, you’ll be a better roommate than almost any I’ve had. And I doubt I’ll sleep anyway, so you can keep me up to date on the latest intel reports. Get some useful results from my damn insomnia.”

He doesn’t answer for a minute, and she starts revisiting her statement in her head to see what she’s given away.

“Ok. If you’re sure.” He turns back from the door, his features arranged into a placid, neutral expression which she’s learned means there’s something going on under the surface. One day, she’s going to tell him how antsy it makes her.

She plonks herself down on his neatly made bed and roughly tugs off her boots. He settles himself on the chair, hooks one ankle over his other knee and pulls out a datapad. He doesn’t look up, even when she slowly divests herself of several short blades and stows them under her pillow.

He’s still in the same position when she comes out of the ‘fresher, pulling that trick he has of melting into the furniture. He’s not motionless, exactly. Complete stillness draws the eye like pure black in the dark. No, Cassian is simply unobtrusive, his movements the equivalent of indeterminate greys, dark greens and blues – the colours of shadows. 

It would work, in almost any other situation. But it’s Cassian, and she’s in his room, about to try to sleep in his bed, on sheets that smell faintly of him, and he could be literally hiding in a closet and she’d know he was there.

She settles back on his bed and tries not to think about him sleeping in it, his body sliding beneath the cover…

There’s a lot for her to avoid thinking about, so it’s hardly a surprise that she still can’t sleep. Every time she closes her eyes, she ends up running through mission parameters, snippets of code, flashes of unpleasant memories. Chirrut says she needs to learn to quiet her mind, but her ghosts are too noisy to let her rest.

She rolls onto her side and watches Cassian reading. If he keeps it up all night, he’s going to hurt his back again. She can see it already in the set of his shoulders, but if she mentions it now, he’ll deny it forever.

“What are you reading?”

He still doesn’t look up.

“Decoded reports from informants on Kuat.”

“Anything new?”

“You’re meant to be sleeping, Jyn, not thinking about rates of Imperial ship production.”

“Well, tell me a bedtime story, then. I’m sure you have plenty of soothing stories ideal to help someone sleep.”

There’s no way that someone as observant as Cassian could miss the sarcastic intent in her voice, but he pauses, then quietly lays aside his datapad.

“Alright.”

_“What?”_

He scratches his head, thinking. “If it’ll get you to sleep, Jyn, I’ll tell you a story.”

 _From your extensive bank of happy memories as a child soldier?_ she thinks, but all that comes out is:

“Ok.”

He shifts his chair over to the side of the bed and resettles himself, one hand slightly tentatively resting on the edge of the pillow. She watches it nervously, but he doesn’t move any closer.

“Ok then,” he mutters to himself, “a story to help you sleep… ok.”

Her scepticism must be clear on his face, because he looks down at her and rolls his eyes.

“This won’t work unless you close your eyes, Jyn. _Try_ , at least.”

She rolls her eyes right back at him, but then closes them obediently.

“Ok then,” he says again. "Once, there lived an old man and an old woman. They were very poor, and all they had in the world was one ice-rabbit, who lived in a cage.”

“If they were so poor, why didn’t they eat the rabbit?” she asks.

 _“Jyn._ Are you even going to try to go to sleep?” His words are frustrated, but she can hear his attempt not to smile.

She grins back at him without opening her eyes, and wriggles a little into his sheets, stretching slightly and feeling her muscles unwind a bit as she relaxes.

“Sorry, sorry. As you were. I’ll be good.”

There’s a pause, and then he resumes his story.

“One day, a snow leopard comes to the little house and he sees the rabbit in the cage. ‘Oh rabbit,’ he calls out, ‘ _conejo_ , the man and the woman are preparing hot water. They are going to boil you and eat you. If I stay nearby, maybe they will give some to me.’”

“'Oh no,’ says the rabbit. ‘They are making hot chocolate, and if you come into the cage with me, I will tell them to give you some too…’"

His voice washes over her, chasing her ghosts away so that all she sees is the clever rabbit and the credulous leopard, all she hears is the gentle melody of his words, all she feels is the softness of his pillow. And she never quite hears the end of Cassian’s story.

 

* * *

 

**The Droid Tutorial**

 

“Do you want some help with that?”

“Kriff off, Cassian.”

“It’s just that I walked by here two hours ago and you were elbow-deep in that droid’s wires then too.”

“I said go away, Andor. I can do this.”

His voice is infuriatingly reasonable. “I’m sure you can. I’m just thinking you might do it quicker with some help.”

She closes her eyes and forces her bent pride out of her way. “Fine. You’re right, I could use some help.” She leans back from the maintenance droid’s chassis. “There is something deeply ironic about having to repair a utility droid.”

He settles down next to her, copying her cross-legged stance on the floor. “What’s gone wrong?”

“Bodhi said the coolant cable to the aft engine still isn’t functioning properly and he doesn’t want to go out tomorrow without fixing it. So we sent this little guy in there but he managed to get a circuit-board full of ethylene glycol for his trouble.”

“Frozen solid?”

“Got it in one. I said I’d pull it out and reprogram him, which was fine, but getting the components rewired is – harder than I expected.”

“Where’s Bodhi gone?”

She sighs, “Skywalker came by and asked if he wanted to get a drink.”

“And you didn’t have the heart to tell him not to.”

She laughs. “His face lit up like a kyber crystal, Cass. What was I supposed to say? ‘Bodhi, you can’t go drinking with your crush because I’m shit at droid-repair?’”

“Fair enough. You could have come and asked me for help earlier, though. I _am_ meant to be your partner.”

_I’m pretty sure a partner isn’t meant to sleep in the other one’s bed though, and definitely isn’t meant to have some really explicit dreams about said partner in that bed. I’m also pretty sure it’s not normal for that person to then steal their partner’s shirt and use it as a sodding sleep aid. So, until I figure out when and how I lost my karking mind, I’m doing the rational thing and avoiding you._

“You seemed busy," she says, eventually.

“I’m never –,” he stops. “Next time, feel free to come ask, ok?”

“Yeah, sure thing.”

He plucks her hydrospanner out of her hand and fishes around in the ship’s toolbox for a small glowrod.

“Ok, let’s see what we have here…”

It’s quite a small droid, small enough to wiggle its way down into the spaces around the engines, so when Cassian leans in to take a look at the mess of wires hanging out of the chassis, he ends up practically cheek-to-cheek with her.

_And this is why I didn’t ask him for help. Force give me strength._

“Ah, I see what your problem is. To be honest, it’s _shavit_ droid design as much as anything else. You need to wire the new circuit-board into place before you hook up the internal regulator for the tool selector but _after_ the actual motor goes into place.”

He pulls away to look at her. There’s a smudge of grease on his cheek.

_Stop focusing on his face, Jyn. Focus on the droid._

“Do you see what I mean?”

She stares stubbornly at the tiny space, and sees nothing.

“Here,” he holds out his hand, “it’s easier if you feel it.”

She ignores his hand, _good move Erso, finally using your brain,_ and sticks her fingers back into the droid, feeling past the wires for the right space.

She’s never had the patience for droid repair. Slicing, yes – that’s more a game of wit and chance, guessing the traps your opponent has laid and circumventing them. So’s forging scandocs – trying to keep ahead of the digital fingerprints and embedded details that distinguish the authentic from the fraud.

But droid repair – it leaves her uninspired, no matter how much Galen had tried to teach her. It’s so pointlessly fiddly, so bound up with physical wires and components. You’re constrained by the original design of the thing, unless you’re _really_ good and you can see what the manufacturer couldn’t, where you can squeeze out some extra torque, space to fit a new tool, whether the circuits can run off a cheaper battery without disintegrating.

It takes her about twenty seconds of groping around blindly before she gets frustrated.

“I can’t feel what you mean, Cassian. Can’t you just do it for me?”

He smiles. “I _could_ , but next time you’ll have to ask for help again, and I know how much you enjoy that.”

It’s so annoying when he’s right.

“Can I just…?” He reaches his hand towards where her arm disappears into the chassis.

“Oh, go on then.”

_It’s just droid repair, Jyn. There’s nothing sexy about –_

He shifts round a bit, his longer arms allowing him to sit a little behind her, one leg stretched out past the droid, the other tucked up close to her back. One hand comes to rest on her shoulder to steady himself.

“Ok?” he asks, close to her ear, and what’s she meant to say? _No, because when you get this close my body reacts like a horny teenager?_

She nods once, sharply, and it’s only then that he reaches for the hand in the droid. His arm presses lightly along hers and she can’t help it, as his fingers close around her palm she jerks a little in surprise.

He stops abruptly. “Sorry, I didn’t mean –,”

_Shit, no, don’t make it weird. He doesn’t need you to make it weird._

“No, it’s fine,” she says, and praise be, her voice actually sounds pretty normal. “Just a slight shock.”

“Ok. Sorry about that.”

He waits a second, probably to see if she’s going to startle again like a damn ash-rabbit, and then his fingers gently slide alongside hers, his thumb sliding up her palm.

“So, see here,” he murmurs, and directs her hand forward and up a little. The extra stretch brings him in so close to her that his sternum bumps up against her shoulder, and his breath stirs the hair above her ear.

“Just – um – sorry, I had it a second ago. Ah – ok, feel this?”

“Yeah.”

“Right, yes, that’s – um – that’s the space that the motor goes into, and then if you – right – if you just move your fingers left a bit, can you see how the circuit board casing will end up flush against the motor?”

And she does. If she just ignores the fact that Cassian is almost wrapped around her, _easy-peasy, right?,_ if she focuses on what he’s telling her and what she can feel under her fingers, the interior of the droid begins to make a lot more sense.

She casts around on the floor with her free hand until she finds the little motor.

“Ok,” she says, “Yeah, so this bit – if I just slot that in here –,” he shifts his hand obligingly to hold the piece steady while she uses both of her hands to fix the little motor into place.

“That’s it. I knew you’d pick it up fast.”

She catches herself almost grinning at his praise, and mentally shakes herself.

“Ok, now what?”

“What do you think comes next?”

“Um, so the circuit-board needs to slot back into the housing for it, but how do I…” her questing fingers tangle with his, and this time he twitches a little, “oops, sorry. Oh, I see – you’re right, this _is_ shit design.”

He laughs as she sticks a glowrod between her teeth and ducks back into the droid.

It doesn’t actually take that long to get the circuit-board in place, made even easier by his hand alongside hers, shifting dangling wires out the way.

_He’s a good teacher. He’d be great at teaching his kids to build basic droids. I can see him getting oil all over the table with them, just like Papa…used…to…_

She fumbles the fixing on the circuit-board and almost slices her finger open on the screwdriver blade.

“Jyn? You ok?”

“Damn – yeah. Yeah. Sorry. Just lost my grip.”

He’s looking down at her, eyes full of concern and warmth and he’s too close, suddenly much too close because she can’t hide how she reacts to him, can’t protect herself from his kindness.

“It’s ok, Cassian. I’ve got it from here.”

He pulls back immediately. “Are you sure? I’m happy to –,”

“No, it’s fine. You said yourself I need to learn. Thanks for the tips.”

He pauses for a second, then nods and pulls himself to his feet. It’s a lot smoother than it would have been a few weeks ago, she notices. He’s probably only a couple more away from being passed fit for duty. _So he can go and get shot at again_.

She frowns.

“Don’t forget to use therma-coating over the sealant when you solder him up,” Cassian says from over her head.

She looks up. His voice has gone flat and cold, more like he’s instructing a new recruit than helping a friend.

“Otherwise the same thing will just happen again,” he continues.

She feels her hackles rise. “Yes, _Captain_ , I’m not a complete idiot. You were doing so well at not being a patronising asshat. Eight out of ten for effort, next time just try to stick the landing.”

His infuriatingly calm expression doesn’t waver. It’s like her words haven’t even registered. He stays looking down at her impassively for a moment or two, then nods quietly and wanders off.

_Fuck. Now he’s pissed at her._

She growls at herself and turns back to the droid.

A voice drifts over her shoulder. “Well, you buggered that up, didn’t you?”

She turns, face already scowling at the person reading her thoughts.

“Bodhi, what are you doing?”

He’s a little drunk, she can tell, and high on life from hanging out with the Starfighters.

“Oh, don’t mind me, I’m just standing here watching you and Cassian make heart-eyes at each other.”

“I was _not_.”

“Oh Jyn, he was practically murmuring love poems in your ear.”

“He was helping me fix a damn droid, Rook. The droid that got broken from _your_ investigations that _you_ left me to fix while you went and made considerably more obvious heart-eyes at Skywalker.”

 _“Shhhh,”_ he hisses, and yep, he’s definitely drunk. Or tipsy, at least. It doesn’t take much for Bodhi to go from sober to tipsy, but it takes a hell of a lot more for him to get from tipsy to pissed.

“At least I’m honest about my crush,” he says, and damn him, that’s not inaccurate. “I swear, if you two haven’t worked your little thing out by the time Cassian’s cleared for ops, I am going to have to find a different crew to fly with. I can’t be dealing with that much drama on my ship. At least this one is just you, me and Lieutenant Bey.”

He’s not wrong. How the kriff is she meant to focus on a mission if she’s still this twisted up about Cassian’s stupid face and stupid voice?

“Speaking of, do we know where we’re going yet?” Bodhi asks, displaying the level of mission briefing retention of every pilot ever.

“Yeah, nothing too hairy. Just a quick recon and check-in with a few informants in the Farstey system. Shouldn’t be too much trouble.”

  

* * *

  
**  
The Injury**

 

“What the fuck happened? What the fuck was she thinking?" 

She’s never heard Cassian this angry before, even including the shuttle after Eadu. Maybe he’s never allowed himself to be this angry before, or maybe she just hasn’t known him for long enough. Normally he stuffs it all down.

“ _Estás pero si bien pendejo!_ Why the hell was she allowed to go in alone? Who fucking authorised it?”

He’s got a mouth on him, it turns out. She’s quite proud.

“No fucking shit, I should have been there. This would never have damn well happened.”

The sound of Cassian's wrath floats up the open ramp to where she's lying on the floor of the ship's loading bay. She’s been staring at the row of cabin lights in the bay ceiling for a long time now. Shara told her to count the flashes of the air lock and if she got bored, to start counting wall panels. She’s done both of those for a long time, but she’s beginning to lose her numbers. She can’t seem to get past twelve. Shara said it didn’t matter, though, so she’s been calmly counting to twelve for what seems like ages.

Now, though, she's on the move. The hangar entrance, flooded with deep golden sunset rays, lurches uncertainly in her peripheral vision as her stretcher is manhandled down the ramp.

It’s a relief to be out of the ship, but there’s nothing for her to count in the hangar, and she feels her heart rate jump as she casts around for something to focus on.

“Where the fuck is Draven? I don’t give a shit if he’s in a briefing. That _hijo de puta_ needs to see what his goddamn orders have done.”

“Cassian…”

His voice changes abruptly.

“Jyn? You ok?”

“Sure. ‘m always ok. Just – kind of tired.”

She’s moving quickly now, someone’s loaded her on to a float-gurney. There’re more people around her, tearing open her shirt and pressing something cool and stinging against her side. Which hurts, sure, but more importantly they keep moving Cassian out of her eye line and it’s stressing her out.

“Cass? Where are you?”

“Right here, _mi_ – Jyn. I’m right here. Well done for staying awake. What has Lieutenant Bey been getting you to do?”

“Um, counting wall panels and – and air lock flashes.”

“Good, that's good. Hey, did you know we reckon Bodhi broke an Alliance speed record between here and the Farstey sector to get you back?”

“He did? Awesome. Where – where is he?”

“He’s back at the ship, don’t worry. Just doing his post-flight checks. He’s fine.”

That’s good. She hadn’t seen much of him when Shara’d got her back on the bird. She shivers.

“Cassian, I’m cold. Is it cold in here?”

His face tightens. “Yeah. Yeah, actually it is kind of cold. Doesn’t help that you’ve got a damn great hole ripped in your shirt.”

“Damn. I liked this shirt.”

“Yeah, me too.”

“Because it’s yours?”

“Yeah. Did you think I wasn’t going to notice?”

She tries to laugh, but her breath catches and it comes out more like a cough. It’s actually getting quite hard to breathe now, but she reckons that’ll just make the worry lines come back on Cassian’s forehead, so she keeps quiet.

“Jyn? Hey, Jyn – what’s on your mind? Come on, Jyn, talk to me.”

It’s funny, her mind’s kind of blank. And her vision too, everything’s going a bit dark.

“Jyn? Jyn? Stay with me…”

She tries to give him a thumbs-up because her mouth doesn’t seem to be working, but he doesn’t get the message and just clutches at her hand instead. But it doesn’t matter. It’s kind of nice. She’ll tell him that, later.

Someone fits a mask over her mouth, which is actually really annoying. No wonder Saw was always in such a shit mood. It’s a real pain to have to breathe through a mask. Maybe that explains Vader too…

Somewhere along the way, she loses her grip on Cassian’s hand. When she realises, there’s a moment of panic where she can’t breathe at all, even with the mask, and she struggles a little against the arms restraining her. And then she hears Cassian swearing a blue streak in the background and somehow, that’s the thing that relaxes her.

“Message me the second she’s out of bacta. I don’t care what time it is… Shara, where the fuck is Draven? Have you found him yet? I don’t give a shit, Bey. He almost got my damn partner killed because him and some fucking med-droid won’t clear me for duty. I swear to the Force I will damn well…”

 

****

 

“No, she’s not awake yet, but 2-1B says any time now. Thanks for stopping by.”

The voice is fuzzily familiar. She floats towards it slowly, as another voice – female this time, joins it.

“No problem, Andor. I’m pleased she’s going to be ok. How’s your eye? Sorry about – you know –”

“The punch? Don’t worry about it, you were completely justified. I – I wasn’t thinking.”

“I get that. If Kes had come back in that state, I’d’ve been pissed too.”

The voices are clearer now, but with the clarity comes pain, burning down her right side, sharp enough to make her chest tighten and her hands clench in sudden fear because _what happened_ and _where is she_ and...

“He’s your husband, Shara. Jyn’s just my partner. There was no excuse.”

… and this voice, _her_ voice, means it’s ok. She’s ok if he’s there…

The other voice, the female one, laughs lightly. “Keep telling yourself that, Andor. Maybe if you admit how you feel about that kid, you’d be less likely to try and haul off on your CO when she comes in a bit beat up.”

“It was just frustration from not being out there with her. That’s all.”

… and now she can feel light behind her eyelids, and the rustles, beeps, clangs and other noises of the Yavin medbay start to flood in…

“Mm-hm. Enjoy wallowing in denial, Andor.”

… Jyn opens her eyes as Lieutenant Bey – _yes, that’s the voice, Shara_ – disappears away down the medbay ward.

She can’t see the other voice, whose name is… whose name is…

“Jyn?”

 _Cassian._ Her voice is Cassian. That’s it. Cassian.

“Hey, hey, don’t move.” His face swims into view, familiar and calm, except – his ...

“Eye?”

He touches the bruised and swollen flesh absentmindedly. “Don’t worry about it Jyn, Shara’s got a mean right hook, but I’m used to being beaten up by Rebel women by now.”

_What did you…_

“Do?”

“Nothing – I was being an idiot and let my anger get the better of my judgment. It’s all ok, just a black eye.”

_Sounds like…_

“Me.”

“Yeah, I know – I’m turning into you. You’re a bad influence, Erso.”

She tries to smile, but it hurts.

“Did we…?” _The intel, the extraction. The boy…._

“The kid’s fine, Jyn. Creating havoc all over the damn base. I thought Thisspiasians were meant to be tranquil.”

She huffs a laugh, but it catches in her throat.

_The little serpent boy, hiding behind the crates, curled so tight around himself she almost didn’t see him. She could have left him. She could… she couldn’t. Because it’s dark, when you’re left behind, when you’re told to stay and you’re not sure why. When you don’t know if anyone will come…_

“Breathe, Jyn, it’s ok. That’s it. You did great. Intel’s clean, everyone’s fine. You got a little banged up, but nothing a day or two in a bacta tank didn’t fix.”

The band around her chest eases, and suddenly she’s exhausted. Her eyes drift closed again as his voice wraps round her.

“… going to keep you here under sedation for a day or two until the skin fuses cleanly around the stitches. You’ll be up and walking by the end of the week.”

She sinks back into the darkness, deep, deeper. So deep that she almost misses the words that hover just on the edge of it, almost unspoken, possibly unsaid.

_Your father would’ve been proud of you, Jyn._

_I’m proud of you._

_I’m so sorry I wasn’t there…_

 

* * *

 

**The Comedown**

 

“Jyn? What the hell are you doing outside my room in your condition?”

Cassian’s voice is still so nice, even when he’s yelling at her. She should tell him that.

“Oh, for the love of the Force. How did you even get out of medbay?”

“C’ldn’t sl’p. Too many other sent – sent’nts.”

She yawns.

“Droid gave m’ sm’thn. Din’t work. But slept here, b’fore. So I left. Disap – ap – appeared. But ev’ything got fuzzy on m’way.”

“ _Híjole,_ you’re high. First night without sedation and they give you H4b. What were those _pendejos_ thinking?"

Then his hand is round her waist and he’s helping her into his room.

“Cass’n?”

“Ok, Jyn. Of course you can stay here.”

There’s his bed. She feels _so_ much better now she has somewhere to sleep. Lying on it feels amazing.

“’S amazing.”

“Ok Jyn. Just lie still.”

His voice is warm in her ear as he settles her down, warm like his sheets. Was he sleeping in them before she knocked? She can’t remember what time it is. She buries her nose into his pillow, inhaling his familiar scent. _Force_ , he always smells so good. Always sounds so good.

“Jyn? Um, you should probably try to stop talking, I don’t think you know –”

“Mmm – pr’tty voice. Pr’tty voice, pr'tty eyes, pr’tty face. So pr’tty. Pr’tty Cass’n. Mmm. Cass’n, talk me to sl’p pls?”

She’s vaguely aware, in the hard, spiky part of her mind that’s still _her_ , that her internal filters are a bit off, but she’s too happy to care. It had taken all her remaining control to stay focused on her destination, to get somewhere safe. So now she doesn’t even try to resist, just lets the pink clouds and Cassian’s beautiful voice flow over her.

Although, Cassian’s not actually talking right now.

“Cass’n? You ok?”

“Uh – yeah, yes, Jyn. I’m here. I’m fine. I’ll just – just sit here while you sleep, ok?”

No, that’s not ok. Cassian’s back is still hurting. The chair isn’t comfortable. She remembers that from the first time she slept here. He’s being silly, he can just stay in the bed with her.

“No, Jyn, that’s – you don’t mean that. You don’t know what you’re agreeing to, right now.”

She frowns slightly, the pink clouds wobbling a bit. Perhaps – no, she can sleep on the floor, then. Just needs Cassian’s pillow and then she can sleep fine there, just needs to get her legs to function a bit better and –

“ _¡Joder!_ Ok fine, fine – Jyn, ok. I’ll stay in the bed with you. Just – stay put. Don’t rip the stitches. I’m going to put – put my hands under you for a moment, just to move you across a bit. Let me know if that’s not, um, not ok.”

And then she can feel him settling in next to her, very gently. His right arm brushes up against her side as his weight causes the mattress to dip and roll them together a little. She curls into him, her face pressed against his shoulder, her hand on his chest. His warmth radiates through his thin shirt. She doesn’t think she’s felt this happy since – since Lah’mu.

“Good, that’s good, Jyn. Stars, I hope you don’t remember this in the morning.”

He turns towards her a little, shifts so one hand is gently stroking her hair, and he’s murmuring to her in a language she doesn’t know, and she can sleep now. She starts to drift, even his voice beginning to fade out. She’s just… so happy. So… happy.

_“Sí, Jyn. Yo también.”_

 

****

 

“No sir, I’m afraid I won’t be able to hold the briefings today. Something’s come up. The morning report is ready though, I’ve already sent it to Tarak, he’s picking it up.”

The pink clouds have sadly dissipated when she wakes. Instead, her whole right side is covered in stabbing pains. She’s vaguely aware of Cassian’s voice in the background, talking through a comlink.

“No, sir. It’s not related to Sergeant Erso’s disappearance from medbay last night. No, I haven’t seen her. Have the droids checked her bunk?”

There’s a pause.

“I see. What about Bodhi Rook’s quarters? Or the ship he’s assigned to? I’ve heard reports of her sleeping in the hangars before.”

Another pause.

“Well, she wouldn’t be the first officer to check herself out of medbay a little early. If she reports that she’s fine and picks up her medication, I imagine they’ll let her recuperate where she prefers. She _is_ stable, I understand?”

She can hear Draven’s tones through the comlink now. He sounds pretty angry. She can’t bring herself to care.

“I’m sure that’s right, sir. I don’t think she’d approve of resources being spent finding her either. I imagine she’ll check in shortly.”

There’s a click as the link ends. She risks opening her eyes. Cassian is standing on the other side of the small room, his back to her. She watches his shoulders lift in a yawn and a sigh.

“How are you feeling?”

She shouldn’t be surprised he knows she’s awake, even though she’s sure her breathing hasn’t changed and she hasn’t moved.

“Ow.”

“Yeah, I’m not surprised.” He picks up a datapad and settles down on the edge of the bed. “Here, log in to your datapad through mine and send Draven a report so he can call off his search party.”

She sighs and complies, dragging herself into a slumped seated position, bare legs tucked up, back braced against the wall. She bites down on the hiss of pain from her side.

“I’ve asked Bodhi to nip up to medical and get you some Nyex. It’s daytime stuff – nothing like as strong as the shit they gave you last night.”

The datapad screen swims in front of her for a moment. The pause seems pretty weighted.

“About last night…” she drifts off.

“It’s ok, Jyn. You weren’t making much sense.”

She bites her lip. She remembers slipping out of the medbay and flashes from the corridors, but not much else. However, the fact that she was blasted out of her mind and just woke up in his bed does not bode well.

“I’m really sorry, Cassian. I – I didn’t mean to turf you out of your bed again.”

His shoulders shift. “You didn’t.”

Her whole body tenses. “What?”

“Sorry, I wouldn’t have said, but – I don’t want you to have any confusing memories later.” He turns and sees her face. “Oh – no, Force no, nothing – nothing happened. We just shared a bed. You were quite insistent.”

“I was?” She jolts unpleasantly from discomfort to embarrassment.

“You were worried about my back."

“Oh.” _Thank the Force. Just worried about his back. That’s – plausible._ “Ok. I stand by that, then. It would have been stupid for you to sleep on the floor."

He huffs a laugh, and swings himself up on to the bed properly, his back against the wall at the foot. He hugs his knees so that he’s not blocking her in, then runs a hand through his bed-messy hair. He’s still in his sleepwear, she realises, his eyes not quite awake. _Fuck, he looks good. Rumpled and relaxed and..._

"You should have just called a droid to take me back to the medbay," she says, to drown out her unhelpful subconscious.

“I couldn’t have done that. It was too funny.” He crooks a smile at her. “A lesser man would have recorded it.”

He’s teasing her. He’s actually teasing her. And damn, she never blushes but there’s a heat on her face which is probably visible from outer-atmo. She narrows her eyes at him.

“Anyway,” he continues, dropping his head to stare at the sheets, “I actually slept really well.”

She curls up tighter, wrapping her arms around herself and pressing her nose to her shoulder to will away the blush.

Instead, she just breathes in a concentrated dose of Cassian. _Oh kriffing hell, she’s surrounded by his smell_. It’s on her clothes, in her hair, on – on her skin. The hairs on her arms begin to lift as her body responds, the heat from her face spreading downwards and deepening.

“Jyn?”

_She’s sitting on Cassian’s karking bed in a med-gown, which actually doesn’t provide as much lower-body coverage as she’d like and kriffing hell, they’d shared a bed last night and it had probably rucked up in her sleep so Force only knows how inappropriate she’d been, and she’s practically inhaling his scent and –_

“Jyn?”

 _– oh_ fuck _she told him that he smelled good last night, didn’t she? And that she likes his voice... Oh no. Holy karking shavit what other appalling truths came out of her drug-addled mouth last night…?_

“Jyn, are you ok?”

_Is she imagining it, or is his voice lower now? Huskier?_

“Jyn, I’m going to need you to stop biting your lip like that. Please. It’s very – distracting.”

Her head jolts up automatically, lower lip still caught between her teeth.

He’s watching her through his hair, dark eyes half-hidden behind the equally dark strands. His whole body looks as tense as she feels.

Half-hypnotized by his stare, half-stunned by her embarrassment, she feels her jaw loosen and her bottom lip slide out from her teeth. She was biting so hard that her lip is aching. Her tongue flicks out to soothe the skin, lips pressing together after to help ease the sting.

Cassian groans.

She’s so surprised that she doesn’t even notice that she licks her lips again until she feels the air run cool across them as she breathes in.

“ _Force_ , Jyn,” he breathes and tips his head back against the wall with an audible thud. He sucks in some air, and she realises distantly that she’s breathing heavily too, as if they’d been sparring not just sitting quietly on a bed.

She watches him take another steadying breath, follows the lines of his throat as he swallows, then he tips his head down and fixes her with one of his patented intense but unreadable looks.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable,” he says, eventually. “Give me a couple of minutes to grab some clothes and jump in the sonic then I’ll leave you be. Take – take as long as you need.”

“Cassian, I’m not going to kick you out your room,” she says. “Especially after I turned up last night fried out of my mind and spouting all sorts of _bantha_ -shit, then got you in trouble with Draven this morning.”

She wriggles across the bed and drops her feet to the floor, biting back a gasp of sudden pain that flows down her side like a cold breeze.

“I’ll get out of your hair. Tell Bodhi not to bother with the meds – I’ll head back to sickbay now and get them myself.”

She notices that Cassian has gone very still.

“Was it?”

“Huh?”

“Was it _bantha-_ shit, what you said last night?”

_Damn, the blush is back._

“I – I don’t remember what I said last night. But I was obviously out of it, so it was probably nonsense, whatever I said.”

For a brief instant, his whole body slumps. And then the moment is over, and his face shutters off.

“Of course. Forget about it,” his voice is flat, emotionless. “I absolutely insist that you stay here though, and rest. I’ve got piles of work to do, so I need to get going anyway.”

He swings himself round and stands, pausing for a second before he visibly exhales and turns to look at her, something like the old Cassian in his voice.

“You did the right thing, to come here. I’m pleased you were able to sleep.”

He waits until she nods slightly and eases her weight back on to the bed, then disappears into the tiny ‘fresher.

_What the fuck is going on?_

She stares at the refresher door for a long minute, the faint sounds of Cassian shrugging off his clothes filtering through to her _and smegging shitsticks Erso, that is not helpful right now._

On the other hand, he’s trapped in there, out of sight but in earshot, and she must not be thinking clearly because she’s eased off the bed and is in front of the ‘fresher door and…

“Cassian?”

There’s a pause.

“Jyn? Is – everything ok out there?”

“Um, yeah.” She closes her eyes and leans her forehead against the door. “If I _did_ remember a bit of what I said last night… and – and it wasn’t _all_ complete _bantha-_ shit… would that be a good thing, or a bad thing?”

“Fucking hell, Jyn. You pick your – hang on…”

She can hear fabric rustling, then an inelegant series of thuds and a bang. “ _Mierda.”_

“Cassian?”

The ‘fresher door slides open, and he’s suddenly in front of her, his sleep-pants hastily tied at his waist. He hasn’t bothered with the shirt, and she’s momentarily transfixed by the extra skin on show, the lean muscle warped a little by blaster scars at his right shoulder, an old knife scar running down his left side, the scattering of hair across his chest which thickens into a darker line from his navel down… She’s so distracted that when he says something, she completely misses it.

“Hmm?”

“I said, which bits?”

She’s still a bit mesmerized. “Bits of what?”

“Last night, Jyn,” he says patiently, and steps forward. His voice shifts, becomes more purposeful. It slides across her skin like the flat of a blade. “Which bits do you remember?”

“Just – fragments.”

“I’m going to need you to be more specific, Jyn.”

He steps forward again, and Jyn never backs away from anything but somehow the backs of her legs fetch up against the edge of the bed anyway.

“The bit where you said you liked my voice. Do you remember that?”

She nods, helplessly.

“Was that _bantha_ -shit?” His voice drops lower, coaxing out her confession.

“N – no.”

He smiles, and she may have forgotten how to breathe. One of his hands drifts over the material of her med-gown, not quite skimming her skin. His breath ghosts warm down her neck.

“What do you like about my voice?"

“Wha’?” she says, intelligently.

“Stop torturing me, Jyn,” he whispers, and she almost laughs because only one of them is getting interrogated right now and it’s definitely not him. “Please, _mi querida_ , what – what do you want?”

_You. I want you._

And maybe she’s still a bit high, because she swears she only says it in her head but he reacts anyway, surging forward and gently pressing her down, supporting her back as she folds onto the bed.

Just like last night, she thinks, but unlike last night he follows her, one knee planted by her hip, one hand by her ear. He’s so close, looming over her. And he’s not touching her, not yet, but there’s a small panicking part of her that resists, just for a second, one hand flying out to his chest.

He stills immediately. “Jyn?”

She inhales slowly, then runs her hand over his skin, fingers lightly running over the scars and palm sweeping flat across the unmarked expanses. His eyes flutter shut, his mouth falling open slightly as he responds to the sensation of her skin on his. Her fears melt away in the face of his desire.

“Force, Cassian, touch me, _please._ ”

He exhales carefully, dropping his forehead to her breastbone before his free hand finally moves to her bare thigh. His touch is feather-soft and electric-sharp, and she actually gasps at the shock of it. He pauses again, lifting his head, the question clear on his face.

“Dammit _yes_ , Cassian. Don’t – don’t stop.”

His palm starts to slide up her leg, up further, further, and he’s so slow she can barely stand it. She has to grit her teeth to stop herself from whimpering.

“Jyn,” he murmurs, and he’s so close to her that she actually starts trembling. “Jyn, we can take it slow, you know. If this is too much… I don’t ever want to –,”

Something in her snaps. She fists her hand in his hair and drags his face up to hers, staring him down from the pillow.

“Cassian, stop being a fucking tease. If you don’t start getting somewhere _right now_ , I swear I’ll…”

She breaks off at the knock on the door.

“Hey Cass – it’s Bodhi. You asked me to run up to the medbay to get Jyn’s clothes and some Nyex?”

 _Bodhi. It’s Bodhi. With her clothes._ She could scream in frustration.

“Go a–,”

Cassian’s hand disappears from her thigh and briefly rests against her mouth. “Shhh! Force, Jyn, you’ve no subtlety at all.”

She punches him lightly in the side, then winces as the movement tugs at her stitches.

He frowns down at her. “As tempting as it is to ignore him, some painkillers are probably a good idea. You’re still healing. We should slow down.”

“Kriffing hell, Cassian, I’m _fine,_ ” she hisses. “Just – grab my stuff off Bodhi, I’ll swallow a pill and then please for the love of the Jedi, put your hands up my med-gown and make me –,”

His fingers land on her lips again and press, just for a second. “Shhhhh….”

Then he smiles, eyes sparkling with mischief, ducks his head and very gently, very deliberately, bites her earlobe. Her thighs clench automatically and she can’t quite swallow the moan before it escapes.

Bodhi coughs meaningfully outside the door. “Jyn…?”

_“Ohshit. Cassian, what’re you –?”_

Cassian nibbles her ear again. As she squirms underneath him, he whispers, “Jyn, I have been aching for this moment for a very long time. Now, you are hurt and by some miracle, we have all day. So, and I know this is hard for you, please could you at least _try_ to be patient?”

 

 

* * *

 

**Coda: Pillow-Talk**

 

 _“Número de estrellas, Jyn, eso es bueno…"_  

There _is_ one thing sexier than Cassian speaking accented Basic, she’s discovered, and that’s Cassian speaking his native tongue.

_“Sí, sí, no te detengas. Ah, mi corazón, me vuelves loco… Cómo es que eres tan buena en esto? Dios mío, espero que no entiende lo que le digo.”_

Of course, that might be contextually biased, given this is the first time she’s heard Cassian slip into Festian for more than the occasional exclamation and right now she’s naked, two orgasms down, and still so turned on she can barely think straight. So it might just be the situation that’s making her shiver at the mellifluous consonants and vowels spilling into the hot, urgent half-dark of his room.

_“Sí, como eso… sí… ¡Joder! Tu boca me va a matar.”_

She’d like to ask him what he means, but her mouth is a little busy right now. She tightens her lips around him, notes his knuckles whiten as he grips the sheet in her corner vision.

_“Órale! Ve más despacio, Jyn. Pare, pare, detener! Estoy demasiado cerca. Dios mío, se siente tan bien…”_

Later. She’ll ask him what it means later.

**Author's Note:**

> I have around 3 years of school Spanish from 15 years ago and a very worrying internet search history. I’ve probably made a terrible mess of Cassian’s Festian pillow talk. If anyone wants to correct me, or just generally improve it, please do!
> 
> I realised the scene where Jyn’s high owes a lot to _Roman Holiday_ , weirdly enough.
> 
> The story that Cassian starts to tell Jyn to help her sleep is stolen from a Mexican folktale called the Rabbit and the Jaguar. I’ve adapted it very slightly because Fest is meant to be a cold planet.
> 
> P.S. I'm not too proud to beg for comments... no obligation but just so you know, I LOVE getting them, if, y'know, the mood so takes you. ;)
> 
> P.P.S. It occurred to me that I should probably provide a translation for the coda. This isn't word-for-word, but it's the gist. (Or it's not and the coda doesn't make any sense - please tell me if I've screwed up the language!)
> 
> _Count the stars, Jyn, that feels good...Yes, yes, don’t stop. You’re driving me crazy. How are you so good at this? God, I hope you can’t understand what I’m saying....Yes, like that, yes – fuck, your mouth is going to be the death of me....Slow down, Jyn. Slow down, I’m getting too close. My God, it feels so good._


End file.
